NEWS STAND: All Eyes on Massachusetts Race to Replace Kennedy, More Men Marrying Up, and Hacks Hacked in China

DOWN TO THE WIRE TO REPLACE TED The U.S. Senate race in Massachusetts has become a referendum on President Obama’s health care reform plan. Voters went to the polls today to elect a replacement for Sen. Edward “Ted” Kennedy and what had been viewed as a routine election has turned into a close race with national implications. The president stumped in Massachusetts last Sunday for Martha Coakley, the Democrat selected to replace Kennedy – and who has transformed into an underdog trailing by double digits. The Root’s Dayo Olopade blogged on the President’s visit over the weekend. Experts were uncertain if Coakley could recover from gaffes that alienated voters in her state. Republican candidate Scott Brown, a state senator, has ridden discontent with the Obama administration to a lead that some polls measure to be as large as 17 to 19 points. Both parties have focused their late efforts on independent voters. Brown supporters argue that denying President Obama the 60th vote in the Senate is the only way to put the brakes on his administration’s spending. Coakley would be the first female U.S. Senator from Massachusetts.

WHO WEARS THE PANTS? More and more of the primary breadwinners in U.S. households are women, according to a Pew Research Center study of census records. The study found that men are increasingly likely to marry women who are better educated and make more money than they do. In 1970, 28 percent of wives in the 30-44 age group had husbands who were better educated and 20 percent were married to men with less education. By 2007, 19 percent had better educated husbands and 28 percent were better educated than their husbands. In 1970, 4 percent of wives made more money than their husbands. In 2007, 22 percent did. The recession has hit men harder than women. Pew says 75 percent of the employment decline in 2008 was among men. Another factor has been the growing number of women in college, who now exceed the number of men. Among U.S.-born 30- to 44-year-olds, women now are the majority both of college graduates and those who have some college education but not a degree. These days, Americans are more likely than in the past to cohabit, divorce, marry late or not marry at all, the Pew report indicted. There has been a marked decline in the share of Americans who are currently married. Among U.S.-born 30- to 44-year-olds, 60% were married in 2007, compared with 84% in 1970.

HACKS HACKED IN CHINAForeign journalists working in China say their Google email accounts have been hacked in attacks similar to those launched against human rights activists and foreign corporations. The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China warned its members in an email Monday that reporters in at least two news bureaus had their Gmail accounts broken into and messages forwarded to unknown accounts, according to the Washington Post. Google, which holds 30 percent of the search market in China, has threatened to withdraw from the country because of the intrusions into its network, which are suspected to come from the Chinese government or its proxies. While the email did not name the news organizations affected, the Associated Press said one of its accounts was breached and that it was investigating to see if any vital information was compromised.